Roman Comedy & Tragedy
Roman comedy, is heavily based on the use of stock characters, and similar plot lines. Most of the plots used by the Roman comedic playwrights are taken from the plays of Greek New Comedy. They were often very bawdy, and relied on farce, and slapstick to hold their audience. Their characters would also wear masks.
Roman tragedy was also heavily influenced by the Greek Tragedies. However with the Roman tragedies there was more descriptive violence, and sensational staging. Playwrights would draw from the audiences that went to see the gladiatorial combats for their shows. The actors for these would also wear masks, always with a sad or tragic expression on their face.
In
Roman comedies there was often a crafty servant who would be the only character
on stage to be heavily padded, and would sometimes be a humpback. Their mask
would often have a very large and gruesome smile on it. To the left is a depiction
of the crafty slave talking to the young lovers.
These masks are typical of what one would see on the Roman stage. The top
to masks are tragic characters, and the bottom three are comedic characters.
The bottom right being the slave, and the other two being old men.
The
bronze statue is of a comedic servant, he has a pointed nose, and a hump,
with a leering expression.
The marble statue is a tragic character, he wears a mournful expression, and in richly dressed, leading one to believe that he might have been the hero of a piece.
Below is a depiction of a Roman Tragic mask.
(pictures from Connolly, The Ancient city pg. 199, and website listed in bibliography)